28 February 2016

A journalist working for the Swedish newspaper Expressen has managed to place a hidden video camera on a bus on its way into Palmyra. This is the first time anyone has filmed in the city since ISIS took control in May 2015 ... or, at least, it's the first time any filmer has come out alive.The bus rolls in along the city’s deserted streets. 70,000 people used to live here. Today it is a ghost town. The modern city was never a pretty place but it was prosperous, having plenty of simple restaurants and coffee shops, with vibrant markets, and rows of new villas rising just outside the ruins. Now, not a single person is to be seen.

Once the bus arrives in Palmyra, it is too dangerous to change the position of the camera: that's why the video only shows what is visible on the right side of the bus. Thus, although we don't see it, as the bus leaves the modern town it drives past the Museum and the square where its Director, Khaled al-Asaad, was murdered last year and his body hung on a lamp post.

You then enter the archaeological area and first spot the emptiness where had been the well-preserved Temple of Balshamin.

Not 50 meters (150') away on the left, you can see the Zenobia Hotel behind the palm trees. We often sat in Zenobia's garden with a cool beer, watching the sun set over this temple, as the dying light turned the apricot-coloured stone into purple and then night.

The Temple of Balshamin is gone. It is truly night.

The secret camera next records the entrance to the Great Colonnade, an elegant street that runs for more than a kilometer (1100 yards), lined with temples, baths, a theatre, and shops on either side. Tall triple arches -- the pictorial symbol of the city -- marked the Colonnade's start on the southeast end. Though dubbed the 'Arch of Triumph', we actually don't know exactly when or why it was erected. No matter. Only broken blocks remain.

I'm not sure why ISIS blew up the arches: they had no religious history nor idolatrous imagery. Perhaps it was just too much a symbol of life before ISIS.

Opposite the triple arches and across the road had been the grandest of all Palmyran monuments, the Temple of Bel. Since the secret camera couldn't photograph from that side of the bus, there are no new pictures of the devastated temple. But we already know what happened to the Temple of Bel.

The only surviving structure within the sanctuary is the archaeological dig-house (upper right). This had once been a village chief's dwelling, a handsome building surrounding a courtyard planted with date palms and terebinth trees. I lived there with the Dutch artist Bierenbroodspot many months at a time in the 1990s: from the terrace of the dig-house the ruins spread out in front, and its other side looked out over the remains of the green oasis. Our last visit was in the winter of 1997 and it was remarkable for the two-tailed Hale-Bopp comet that hovered every night over the temple until the very last weeks of our stay. Sitting on the terrace, staring out at the utterly dark and silent temple, it was easy to think of portents, and how the cosmic indifference of Hale-Bopp would once have foretold the death of kings and the fall of empires. We could almost reach out and touch that ancient world, when every sign was meaningful. I keep telling myself that the comet could not have foretold the coming of ISIS.

The Temple of Balshamin is gone. The Arch of Triumph is gone. The tower tombs have been blown up. Only rubble remains.

“The IS terrorists were looking for two tonnes of buried gold. When they didn’t find it they started executing people and destroying Palmyra,” the son-in-law of Khaled al-Asaad told Expressen.

I suppose what they could not understand was that Palmyra itself was the treasure. And so they themselves destroyed the gold.

Note an old error crept into the text on the video: King Solomon did not found Tadmor. That idea was based on a misreading of the place name "Tamar" in 1 Kings 9:18, conflating it with "Tadmor", the Semitic name for Palmyra (both names meaning 'palm trees').

Illustrations

All stills from the video except that of the Temple of Bel which was published by BBCI

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About Me

I studied Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford (M.Litt.) and am a member of the British School at Athens. I excavated for many years on Crete and on the Greek mainland and travelled extensively in the Middle East. I have lived and worked among the ruins of the three great Caravan Cities: Petra, Palmyra, and Baalbek. It was at Palmyra in Syria that I began to tell the story of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and the rebellion that she led against imperial Rome. I was living within the grounds of the Temple of Bel, and at night, when the great gates of the temple were shut, I came closer to the spirit of the time and place than probably anyone has ever done before. I know that I felt very close to Zenobia, which made the book a joy for me to write.

IS THIS ZENOBIA'S REAL PORTRAIT?

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These are five blogs I enjoy reading the most, and without which life would be less interesting for me: David Meadows' Rogue Classicism is my number one go-to blog.... My second choice is Judith Weingarten's Zenobia - she covers strong ancient women, not just Zenobia, and since these warrior women are the subject of my next book, I love her lengthy well-researched posts. PHDiva"Judith Weingarten, author of The Chronicle of Zenobia: The Rebel Queen writes about gods, kings, war and chivalry here. Written with pace and verve it is a fantastic and exciting analysis."Mike @ Official Osprey Publishing Blog

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"Judith's blog, Zenobia: Empress of the East is a treasure trove of insights into early history, but also the explorers, scholars and archaeologists who uncovered the ancient world."Martin@The Lay Scientist